Photographic systems available for general public use are primarily for quick, on-site portraits of the user or other persons. For example, the known art includes coin operated finishing booths having a fixed lens camera which takes a series of exposures of one or more individuals sitting in the booth. Soon after the exposures have taken place, the exposed film is developed and the corresponding photographs are dispensed to the user.
Variations on known finishing booths are also known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,708 by Allen, issued Feb. 4, 1975, discloses a coin operated photographic apparatus for automatically photographing a person in a cubicle having a background scene from the city where the cubicle is located and dispensing the photographs in postcard form suitable for mail delivery.
Photographic systems for portrait photography which do not require the use of a cubicle are also known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,660 by Biondo, Jr., assigned to PVI, Inc., issued Jan. 2, 1990, discloses a housing, a camera having self developing film capabilities mounted within the housing, and electrical circuits for positioning the person being photographed. The system disclosed by Biondo is adaptable for mounting on top of a display stand which can be used to display items for retail sale.
Finishing booths offering the user a selection of images as background for the person or persons being photographed are also known. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,708 issued to Allen, the background scene is from the city in which the finishing booth is located. U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,105 by Bloch et. al., issued Aug. 18, 1987, discloses a video recording booth for self-service production of vended video cassette recordings to a user wherein the user preselects, among other things, the background.
These systems are used for portrait related photography where the resulting photograph (or video cassette) is dispensed at the finishing booth soon after the photograph (or video) is made. These systems are not adaptable to accepting a user's photographic film or transferring high quality images onto the user's photographic film. Further, these systems are usually found in shopping malls or supermarkets and are not adaptable to being located outside at or near objects of interest. As a result, the general public has been left with the costly and bothersome alternative of purchasing slides of the object of interest, usually at gift shops at or near the site of the object of interest, and converting the purchased slides to photographs.
In view of the deficiencies of known systems, it would be desirable to provide an image capture system for use by the general public where the system accepts the user's image recording medium, such as photographic film. It would be advantageous if the system is available for public use at geographic locations having objects of interest. It would be advantageous if the system allows the user to capture on the user's image recording medium either a real image of the object of interest or a stored image of the object of interest previously captured, for example, under optimal weather and lighting conditions. For example, the system could allow a user to preview one or more stored images of the object of interest captured under varying weather and lighting conditions, select one of the stored images previewed and capture the selected stored image on the user's image recording medium. It would be desirable to provide an image capture system which allows a user to use a portion of their image recording medium, remove the image recording medium and use the unused portion in another image capture system or photographic system, such as the user's own camera.